Re: Was the USA Responsible for the Cold War?
[QUOTE=Pannonian]
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I wonder what cegorach expected the Allies to have done. In 1943, when he says Churchill and FDR sold out the Polish, the Allies weren't even on the continent.
More aggressive approach - to treat Stalin as necessary ally, but NOT AS a friend !
They could use the extremely useful Lend-Lease (just check how much US equipment was send there, not to mention raw materials).
In Tehran the Allies promised Stalin to deal with Poland, but thought about it as democratic leader, NOT as despotic demi-gods.
So still assumed there is something to negotiate, some place for Stalin to give up his demands, but he didn't and NOTHING what the Allies later did changed his mind, on the contrary after what FDR did during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 he was sure that he can go as far as he wants !
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About the banning of British airdrops to Warsaw - Stalin was quite aware who was the main architect of foreign intervention during the wars in the early days of the USSR, and teased Churchill about it. While he may have forgiven the man and respected him as the leader of a foreign power allied to his own, he wasn't going to forgive the perfidious British and give them a free hand in his patch.
So suddenly he takes the revenge for the intervention in 1917-21 ?
Don't make me laugh !
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but they were forbidden from landing in Soviet held territory, and would be held as prisoners if they did.
NOT TRUE. Have you ever heard about US airforce based in Poltava ? They were free to use the airbases to re-fuel and WERE NOT shot or imprisoned.
It was a matter of pressure put on Stalin. Even in the question of the Uprising he did make concessions - after all initially he refused to treat it as event which really is happening.
It is justified to blame the Allies here - Churchill tried to make FDR to address the question together, to act unified and make Stalind do something.
Unfortuanatelly it was too late and FDR was simply too much concerned with his idea of the future world order where his friend Stalin was supposed to play decisive part.
FDR trusted Stalin to really incredible level - he thought of him as the ally against Churchill.
Why was it too late - because the Allies knew the uprising will happen - they were informed about it since 1940, the Independent Parachute Brigade (wasted at Arnhem) was created and trained to support it, all plans of the Polish Underground State spoke about it, but the Allies do not even manage to consult it amongst themselves !
The frantic activities of Churchill in summer 1944 were desperate, but badly prepared, partly disrupted by his own administration and met with ignorance from FDR's side. This is why Churchill was (and is) blamed for the final results.
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The very aggressive attitude of the polish army leaders and government in london and their absolute refusal of any form of compromise probably also favoured stalin's manoeuvre by forcing the us diplomacy to make a choice between something that could seem reasonable - ussr requests - and a dead end - polish requests.
What ? Where was that aggressive ?
Maybe you should remember that in 1939 Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union and despite this Poles came to the agreement with Stalin in 1941 where Stalin declares pact Ribbentropp-Molotov null and void.
The fact that behind Polish backs the Allies promised everything to Stalin changes nothing.
In other words you are blaming the member of the same allience for not submiting half of its territory to the Soviets !
Polish attitude was REALISTIC - they knew what to expect from Stalin, but believed he will not dare with allied support given to Poland.
It is true that the Allies didn't keep their promises (just like in 1939), but it is ludicrous to call Poles aggressive for demanding from Stalin to honour the agreeemnt he signed !!! :whip:
Same way you can actually blame us for the beginning of the 2nd WW - after all there was this stubborn attitude not to submit to Hitler's will.
Situation is so much similar - Czechs capitulated in 1938 with Sudetenland and got the full annexation half a year later, the Balts agreed to Stalin's modest demands for military bases on their territory and are annexed a couple of months later - see any differences ?:wall:
@Marshal Murat
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I have to say I feel bad for the Polish resistance fighters. They were all about freeing Poland, and they end up in camps, being indoctrinated about how the Soviet Union is great, and why they should lay down their arms.
It was far more simple - officers were shot and soldiers were given choice - fight in the puppet Polish army or go to Siberia. It was happening everywhere from July 1944.
The extreme case is during the Uprising in Warsaw - while the capital fought the Nazis, NKVD was executing the resistence members on the other side of the river and in the same city.
Re: Was the USA Responsible for the Cold War?
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Originally Posted by cegorach
More aggressive approach - to treat Stalin as necessary ally, but NOT AS a friend !
They could use the extremely useful Lend-Lease (just check how much US equipment was send there, not to mention raw materials).
You want to risk losing the war against Germany just to make a point against Stalin? Barring the Dieppe disaster, the Allies hadn't even made an effort against continental Europe at that point - the Soviets were doing all the fighting, and as such, could make all the demands. Stalin's overriding demand was for a second front to be opened, and until that happened, the Allies could make no corresponding demands of their own. If the Allies made any noise about Poland or such things, Stalin could always threaten to make a separate peace with Hitler and leave Britain to deal with the consequences.
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Originally Posted by cegorach
So suddenly he takes the revenge for the intervention in 1917-21 ?
Don't make me laugh !
He remembered enough about those days to tease Churchill about it in one of the conferences (Tehran?), drawing a embarrassed apology from the British PM. IIRC it's in Sebag-Montefiore's Court of the Red Tsar.
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Originally Posted by cegorach
NOT TRUE. Have you ever heard about US airforce based in Poltava ? They were free to use the airbases to re-fuel and WERE NOT shot or imprisoned.
Then ask the Americans why they didn't fly in airdrops then, because Stalin was definitely hostile to the British, at least where their efforts did not directly benefit the USSR.
Re: Was the USA Responsible for the Cold War?
I'm seeing a lot of (correct) comments about how the Allies were in no shape to go to war again, how most of the Allies' nations were in tatters, and how Europe could not bear another war between superpowers so soon after the last one.
But the fact of the matter is, my friends -- neither was the Soviet Union. Of all the so-called Allies, it was the USSR that had suffered the most. Almost half of the dead in the war lived in one of the various Socialist Soviet Republics, and while the effort to relocate Soviet industry was mammoth and amazing, the Uralic plants weren't ready to take on the only industrial power left untouched by the war -- the Arsenal of Democracy, the United States of America. Ike proved that, no matter how good your strategy, it just wasn't gonna happen without a golden logistic machine -- and the best in the world resided on the Columbian continent.
So stop making it look as if the Soviets were unperturbed and untouched by the ravages of war. They had suffered the most under it. Sure, this was because their leadership was far, far more ready to commit its resources than were its counterparts in London, France, Washington, or even Berlin (and I don't think Ol' Joe was gonna let up on that unbroken record), but even under such governance there are serious and final limits to a country's endurance.
In the end, everybody was tired of war. The Soviets, and the future NATO. Poland and other hard-fighting Allies were therefore not occupied all over again because of the overbearing Soviet strength, but because of Allied weakness in the face of this unrelenting Red Bear. When the agreed-on Polish democratic elections were putsched by Moscow's puppets, no-one did a thing. If that ain't a knife in the back I don't know what was.
Re: Was the USA Responsible for the Cold War?
[QUOTE=Pannonian]
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If the Allies made any noise about Poland or such things, Stalin could always threaten to make a separate peace with Hitler
And lose the war... Untill late 1944 the Soviets didn't cross their pre-war borders, something worth considering I believe.
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He remembered enough about those days to tease Churchill about it in one of the conferences (Tehran?), drawing a embarrassed apology from the British PM. IIRC it's in Sebag-Montefiore's Court of the Red Tsar.
Which is lovely. The Red Emperor getting some sort of 'moral highground', ironic perhaps, but clearly shows flaws in Allied policy.
In many aspects the British and the Americans were more Soviet than Soviet propaganda - there are numerous examples of such actions including those of Brish press which were condemned so strongly by Orwell.
In many ways it were the Allies who did the self-humilation to themselves and worshipped Stalin.
It might be necessary to justify the alliance with the totalitarian regime, but they went so far that one of those US propaganda productions became a hit of Soviet war cinemas - personally approved by Stalin, certainly not without much amazement how something like this can be produced without his 'encouragement'...
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Then ask the Americans why they didn't fly in airdrops then, because Stalin was definitely hostile to the British, at least where their efforts did not directly benefit the USSR.
I don't need to. I have already said it - they appeased Stalin and FDR trusted Stalin who 'does what he can'.
It is unfortunate he spent so much energy on undermining the 'great evil' of the British empire...
Some people often wonder why it is Churchill who took most of the blame for the treachery.
The answer can be given in one short sentence - because he personally dealt with the Poles and assured them whenever he had the opportunity.
One of most pathetic moments of British government was when Eden wwas asking repeatedly his own staff in Moscow 'if I do that would I be remembered as an appeaser ?' in some sort of self-explaining chant.
The ultimate failure of the British especially was that they indeed allied themselves with the devil as Churchill once said before 'Barbarossa', but never dealt with him as they should acting with incredible arrogance and petty malice towards former allies even untill 21st century.:thumbsdown:
